So Long
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Eat, drink and be merry, sure, he understands the saying but he's never lived it.
1. Chapter 1

**notes**: This is 1/4. I think. I hope. We'll see. Also, no beta. All mistakes are mine.

_Come on let's fall in love... again._  
"Half-Life," Duncan Sheik

-

"How can you drink that?" His nose wrinkles at the searing, black coffee in her cup. The steam that rises off of it smells like turpentine, and he can't fathom how anyone can find something that must taste so acrid in any way appealing. It's the morning, and the cafe reeks of sugary-sweet pastry and espresso.

The sun is cutting through the tinted windows of the coffee shop and it's hot in that way that it's bound to get hotter. Of course it's bound to get hotter, he supposes, it is the desert and it's not likely to cut them a break. Looking over at her, he wants to contain the smile that perks his lips but doesn't bother, what would be the point? Attribute it to early-morning lethargy or just that he hasn't ingested his standard amount of caffeine, but Gil Grissom finds it quite difficult to look away.

And why look away, too, after having gone without looking upon her for more than a year? She's such a welcome sight, all long and relaxed and easy. She's everything that he's been missing here but doesn't have the heart to tell her that. It would be too much, too soon, or too little, too late. Too much of something and he doesn't want to fracture the easy friendship he's managed to volley back to her by complicating things.

He's a simple man and thus he will do with indulging in simple pleasures: a cup of coffee with a person he absolutely adores. A person who is wearing her hair messy and curly, who is adorned in an old UCLA sweatshirt that he once lent her (had she worn it on purpose?) and faded converse sneakers. Sara Sidle looks younger than her years, yet-to-be-jaded, perfectly carefree and dare he think, amazing. She is one of the most diligent workers he's ever met, one of the smartest, one of the most enigmatic women he's had the chance to know.

He thinks that he loves her for it; he could be wrong.

Her hand makes its way to the packets of sugar and her fingers trail over the flimsy paper edges; she decides against sweetener.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she begins in retort, thunking a spoon into the mug although there's nothing to stir. "This is how big boys and girls drink their coffee." With a hand stained by the chocolate chips in her muffin, she gestures to the mug in front of him. "Seriously, I don't know many straight men who'll order a white chocolate mocha in public."

He scoffs at her and palms the hot porcelain; he would bring it to his lips and drink but that would obscure his examination of her and how she holds her own coffee. Like it's an old friend, like she can't get enough she gulps it as she smoothes the wrinkles out of the local paper. Emblazoned across the top is a headline explaining that the crime rate has sky rocketed, and he wonders how she feels about that. Instead of putting voice to his question, he shakes a bit of powdered chocolate on top of his mocha and sits back.

"Really? More chocolate?" Her eyes are on the paper and haven't lifted from it. He smiles; she can place his movements just as well as he can place hers. It's intrinsic, they know one another, they're aware of one another, all the time.

"If I'd known I would have been berated for my caffeinated beverage of choice, I wouldn't have bothered to come," he says in jest.

Sara looks at him from under her lids, paper balanced on legs that are perched on the chair to her left, hand around her coffee; the pen in her other hand jitters ever so slightly. She's never looked so lovely, _that_ he can say, unequivocally. In a halo of early morning sunlight, she sits and just relaxes with him. "Oh please, Gil, yes you would have."

It's then that his fears are completely assuaged, if anything over the last seventy-two hours has cast doubt on his decision.

He's glad she decided to stay in Vegas, whether for him or not.

They sit in companionable silence and it's a wonder to him that he's not itching to ask her for the crossword from her paper. He's more than happy to simply sit and say nothing, watch her read, drink his coffee. It's quite a welcome thing, being suddenly and unequivocally at peace.

Sara is circling things here and there, shaking her head at others, outright laughing at some. "'Two bedroom, no pets, single females only please.' Okay, so, a serial killer is renting that one," she says offhandedly, "Clearly." With a large stroke, she draws a huge red 'X' over the listing.

It's quiet for a time, the background noise of the other patrons moving about just "You work tonight?" she asks, not bothering to look up at him, like they're the oldest of friends, like she does this all the time. Like _they_ do this all the time; it's endearing.

He smiles and leans back, "I do, in fact."

"Sucks," it comes out with just a touch of jest, and she looks up at him for the briefest of seconds.

She wants a cigarette and she says so, says she wants to smoke it right down to the filter, just to get a rise out of him. His eyes roll theatrically and although it's a habit he doesn't encourage, there's something about her holding that cigarette to her mouth, sucking in the smoke, that's appealing in a way that nothing else is. It's a guilty though, and he banishes it by clearing his throat and asking, "I thought you were quitting?"

"Tomorrow," she promises and drains her mug, circles one last apartment listing before stuffing the thin paper into her bag. She pulls out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter and shoves them haphazardly into her pocket.

Gil doesn't know what to say, and so he says what he knows, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow-"

"Can the Macbeth," she begs around a cigarette; her fingers work the lighter quickly and before he can close the door to the shop behind him, she's got a rhythm going. "I promise not to light up again today," Sara begins as they make their way for her beat up Chevy. "If you promise to keep a lid on the quotes, seriously, can't take it."

"Maybe," Grissom says.

Well, maybe a lot of things.


	2. Chapter 2

thanks: to ckofshadows. Because no one wants Grissom eaten by a shark. And plus, Shark Week was _last_ week.

* * *

The waitress is too skinny; this is the first thing he notices as he steps into the greasy diner. There is only one, and she is flitting back and forth, behind the counter to pour out more coffee for the two long-haul truckers and back to the two booths that are populated. There's a bleak-looking couple in one, discussing something all-too-serious in hushed tones.

He doesn't know why they bother; the soft rock station drowns out even the sound of the traffic screeching by outside.

Sara is at the second-to last booth at the back, staring out the window. It's been twenty-seven hours since they began their shift and it was her idea to make a detour on the way back to the lab for a bite to eat. Well, it was actually his suggestion, after her stomach had suggested-with a loud growl-that it was exceedingly empty and in need of nourishment. She's the type of person who would return home to fall into bed and ignore the hunger, so she could sleep and be back at work as soon as possible and he knows this, knows her.

He has the urge, for the umpteenth time, to take care of her.

The mid-afternoon sun has banished the shadows to the corners and delights to play upon the golden flecks in her hair. He finds her lovely, there has never been a time that he hasn't, but as of late, this is beginning to prove a problem. Grissom thinks all too often of how lovely she is and that just won't do, not if they are to work together in a professional context.

"Hey, Grissom," she says a little dreamily as she catches sight of him walking towards her. He's clothed in worn gray pants and a short-sleeved, olive button up shirt and feels absolutely absurd sitting down in front of her. Her tank top is tomato red with bright orange stripes and she is wearing jeans, jeans that aren't new but aren't old and fit to her in what he would consider to be all of the right places.

Over the two years previous, they have fallen heavily into a rather rocky working relationship. Grissom wonders uneasily what would have come between them had he not taken the job as Night Shift Supervisor, if he'd had more time to cultivate the friendship they'd just begun to solidify when she'd moved to Las Vegas. It's no matter now, he supposes, as what's done is done.

Sara's fingers begin tracing the line of her mug's handle. "I didn't think a B&E could take that long to process," and with a very unladylike yawn, she scrubs a hand over her face. She is boneless in the booth and Grissom is torn between finding it adorable and being concerned for her well being.

"Well," he begins, signaling to the waitress for two menus, "When one of the missing pieces is a portion of an ancient Grecian frieze..."

"Why would anyone keep that on display in their home? It's so..." As she searches for the word, the too-skinny waitress refills her cup. "Ostentatious, deliberately decadent."

Grissom nods and watches as she pours a heaping teaspoon of sugar into her coffee, a beverage, she has of late, begun to drink with a touch of milk. It's things like this, things that seems minuscule in the grand scheme of knowing her, that he files away. Two years ago she'd taken her coffee black but now, now... Sara is changing. This is a common fact of life, as one grew, one changed, but it pains him that he wasn't aware of all of the other things that were changing about her.

Because he'd given up the chance to get to know her more intimately when she'd become his subordinate. He'd given that up, and it was no one's fault but his own.

He hums his affirmation to her claim and picks up his own cup of coffee, "It disgusts me when people use art and antiquities to display their personal wealth, as nothing more than status symbols." He pauses a moment, "That they have no connection to the art it's..."

Sara stops reading the menu that she's been perusing and glances up to catch his eye; the determination and passion in her gaze catches him off guard for a moment. "People do things that are by far, more disgusting."

Grissom remains in silence, but nods, understanding her point. They see the horrors that human beings are capable of each and every day. To be sure, this particular case hadn't showcased the intricate depravities that the human species were known to perpetrate, so why is she reacting so harshly? There's something there, beneath the skin and he sees it when their gazes meet; electric.

For awhile, they read their menus in silence, pausing only to pick up their coffee and take a drink. He doubts that this caffeine will have any better effect than the caffeine he'd ingested two hours ago, but he drinks it nonetheless out of habit. Old habits dying hard was never an idiom he found himself indulging in much, but perhaps that was because he didn't have many habits. Picking his nails and biting his lip and thinking too much about the woman who is currently seated across from him were basically it.

He could quit none of the three.

Sara folds up her menu and folds her hands in her lap, stiffly leans back in the booth and closes her eyes and the words are out of his mouth faster than he can even think them. "Are you alright?"

She smiles, eyes still closed and a few of the lines in her forehead disappear. "Yeah, it's just been... a rough couple of months." Without another word, she lays her scarred hand palm up on the table. The skin surrounding the healed gash is still puffy and slightly aggravated and he feels his stomach pull.

Whoever said the heart was the organ of love had seriously underestimated just how emotions take a toll on the body.

It's been a rough couple of months on all of them, absolutely. On the both of them, more than the others, however. Now that he can hear, he wishes she would speak so he could listen, finally _listen_ but it's become difficult. His fingers itch as she flexes her palm and the skin pulls against the scar.

He resists the urge to reach out and touch her skin and it's like torture, what he's been putting himself through. There's no happy medium for them, he's realized, and this is a choice he's made. He has all of her or none of her, it hurts too much, meeting in the middle. Even when he thought he was making strides in the right direction...

"It'll get better with time," he manages and stares at her until she opens her eyes. Head still back against the worn plastic seating she nods, sadly. He's missed something here and he knows it as soon as it goes unsaid.

There's a long sigh from across the table. "What else?" she whispers and allows her eyes to close again.

He's confused as ever; he can't remember a time lately when he hasn't been outright confused by her. "'What else,' what?"

"What _else_ would you say? What was I expecting?" The self-deprecating smile breaks him and he panics. There are never words in these situations, not for him. Grissom forgets to breathe, blink and he feels so incredibly small sitting before her. Like he should be judged, but she's never one to do the judging, is she? He tastes fear and wasted years in his mouth and can't manage to think of a damned thing to say.

Sara sits up and opens her eyes. They're clear, they're not accusing but undeniably sad, like she's lost something.

"I loved you, once," she says. There's a finality that comes with that, that slams between his temples and he fights the urge to scream. The words roll off her tongue with such ease that he's left to wonder how many times she'd practiced telling him this, how many chances he missed to properly receive her affections, back when they were brilliant and real and whole.

The too-skinny waitress comes and takes their orders, egg salad for her and a turkey club for him and more, more, _more coffee please_.

And as they both carefully avoid the others' gaze, he curses her for the past tense she's put her feelings into. He curses himself for allowing it all to slip into the past. And he curses the past for being the perfect place for the both of them to hide.


End file.
